


You Only Need One

by TrenchcoatButtons



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: AU, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-14
Updated: 2015-03-14
Packaged: 2018-03-17 19:21:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3541070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrenchcoatButtons/pseuds/TrenchcoatButtons
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When his brother walked out of that portal, his niece was sucked in.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Only Need One

**Author's Note:**

> Quick little AU fic where Mabel was pulled into the portal when Stanley came out. A little offbeat and I'm not sure if I got Stan's voice right, but it is what it is. Unbeta'd, so forgive the typos. I'll go through and fix it a litte later.
> 
> Also I don't know SHIT about magic or portals or science, really, soooooo just roll with it.

There is a twelve year old boy trying to kill him.

Stanley Pines wishes he could.

Small fists are slamming against his stomach and chest, and they hurt, but he doesn’t really feel them. He doesn’t really feel anything, to be completely honest. Thirty seconds ago, he was ecstatic, but now all he wants is for Dipper’s hands to destroy him like the boy is trying to do.

“She _trusted_ you!” he’s screaming, over and over and over again. “She trusted you! She trusted you! She trusted you!”

The boy’s voice is hoarse and screechy and it starts to fade into quiet crying as Stan meets his brother’s eyes for the first time in thirty years.

The portal pulses.

“ _I_ trusted you.”

He snaps, breaks away from his nephew and shoves past Soos and almost knocks his twin down, but he bypasses all of them to leap at the portal and through the fading remnants of blue energy. Stan passes through and he lands in a heap on the rubble strewn ground behind the portal.

He does not go through.

And for the first time since Mabel said she trusted him, Stan Pines makes a sound. A strangled, anguished bellow that bubbles up like acid through his chest and out past his teeth.

Somewhere behind him, Soos is keeping Dipper from running at his great uncle, and Stan can hear his nephew sobbing and screaming and furious and grieving.

He relates.

Thirty years ago he did the same thing.

But this is worse. This is a thousand times worse, because Stanford had stopped trusting him a long, long time ago, and nobody had trusted him since, and the one person, the only person in the world who unequivocally cared for and trusted him… Has paid the price for doing so.

When his brother had stepped out, his niece had been sucked in.

“Stanford,” he croaks, forcing himself to his feet. “We gotta open it back up.”

“We can’t.”

“Horseshit, I did it, it took thirty years, but I did it, an’ you’re here, you can do it again.”

“No,” Stanford whispers. “I can’t. Look around you, Stan. This isn’t going to be a quick fix, and you’ll need more fuel, more time… She doesn’t have time, on that side.”

He turns around, and in the reflection of his twin’s glasses he sees his own face, red and battered and weeping. “Then what _good_ are you?”

That’s not fair, he knows. Ford is playing fifty-two pickup right now, trying to catch cards out of midair and figure out what’s what. But what’s left of Stan’s heart is shattered and he can’t be assed to be kind and polite to his twin right now. His brother matters.

Mabel matters more.

“She’s your granddaughter…?”

“No. She’s _Shermy's_.”

Somewhere, very deep inside, Stanley wishes she was his granddaughter. But the revelation is enough to shock Ford into something more than defeat and confusion, and he looks back at Dipper.

The pieces click together, and Stan watches six fingers reach up to press against his twin’s mouth in shock and understanding. Still in silence, Stanford reaches into the other side of his long coat and pulls out a battered field journal. Bound in leather and with a six fingered hand drawn on the cover, a black number four within that. Suddenly, the first journal is in his other hand, and he’s hunched on the floor flipping through pages.

“There… might be something. There has to be something. You’re right I- I don’t know what I-”

He’s shaking his head, coming back down to earth. None of them, least of all Ford, expected to be met with THIS upon his return. Dipper breaks free of Soos’s careful, containing arms and lands next to his uncle, slamming the second and third journals down in front of him.

“These can help, right? You wrote them, you _know_ -”

“I do,” he says, and there’s an inkling of the old, cocky mind of Stanford Pines in the way he says it. “I know more about Gravity Falls than any other human being.”

Soos moves to stand over them, listening as Ford rattles on about ley lines and convergent hot spots, thin dimensional walls and the space-time continuum. Stan watches Dipper furiously rub tears away from his face, soaking it in, asking questions, getting answers.

No one walks over to him, and he can’t bring himself to walk over there.

He listens in anyway.

“The weakest gravity points in the town are up at the floating cliffs. We’ll need to scale the face to get up in there, either one should work. We’re going to need copper wire, salt, and at least three herkimer diamonds- I can take those out of portal behind us.”

“You got diamonds in there?”

Ford glances at Soos. “Yes. There should be, anyway, unless Stanley has altered the design, which I doubt. They’re not really ‘diamonds’, they’re crystals. Used to amplify energy, conduits for… well, all the stuff to make a portal. More magic than science, true brilliance is melding them together. Not important right now. There should be an elevator on the left cliff, I built it with my colleague, and if we’re lucky it’ll still work to take us up there. What time is it?”

“After eight,” Stan says, and the three of them turn to look at him. “You want midnight, right? When the moon’s at it’s highest. There’s salt upstairs, and rolls of copper up in the second level of the basement. If we’re quick we can go right now.”

He hasn't been this version of himself in so long, the words are rusty and thick on his tongue, but they come out easily. Stan steps up onto the lower rim of the broken portal and starts prying off the singed metal casing. He doesn't look behind him when Stanley speaks.

“Do you know-”

“No. I don’t. You know, but I remember all the junk you spewed at me. Crystals, fire, spirits, energy, astrology. The copper’s upstairs, Soos, go load it into the truck. I’ll dig these out. Salt’s in the kitchen.”

He doesn’t put any direction towards Dipper, because Dipper hates him.

Stan hates Stan too.

“Stanley. Which one of us is going through?”

Halfway through pulling out a fist-sized hunk of crystal, Stan goes still. He won’t let Dipper go through. Not Soos either. They are young and inexperienced and far too… he won’t let them go.

Stanfordhas just come back.

“I’ll go! I can go! I’m not going to let him get my sister!”

“Dipper, dude- I don’t think that’s a good idea! I’ll go, Mr. Pines!”

“Soos, she’s _my_ sister!”

“She’s _my_ friend!”

“She’s _my_ responsibility.”

Stan rips the crystal out of the metal rods that hold it in place, and moves along towards the second. He’s on autopilot, pulling wire and glass and metal out of the way to pull pieces of glittering white diamond out of the smoldering blue glow of this metal atrocity.

“It’s your fault she’s gone!” Dipper yells. “You _lied_ to us! She trusted you! You put the entire world at risk and we all almost died and it’s _your_ fault Mabel is gone. You shouldn’t even be allowed to be here right now!”

“Exactly, kid. Nobody’s gonna mourn me if I kick the bucket on the other side,” he wrenches out the second, and goes for a third, higher up and harder to get to. “You think I expected this? You think I wanted this? It’s my fault. I know that. I did this. I put you all in danger, and I’m going to be the one to go in there and get her out. If I die, I die, Stanford has to make sure the portal stays open, you two have to protect him, and I have to put Mabel back through that portal. End of discussion.”

And for all the wonders in the world, Dipper doesn’t fight him on it.

But he also won’t look at him. Or speak to him. Or anything. Just dutifully follows after Stanford with the journals in his arms, asking for more details, asking where Mabel is, exactly.

It's hard to explain. But Stanford does his best. The future, he explains, but not. Gravity Falls, but not.

Here and there, separate and the same.

Within the hour, they are all crammed into the Stanleymobile, speeding to the old lift at the cliff’s edge. He hangs back the whole way, carting wiring and salt up the lift where Stanford has set up shop. It’s cold and distant out here, with the moon rising higher in the sky and the stars shining down without a care in the world. The gravity IS weak here, and as it inches closer to midnight, Stan can see small stones on the ground start to float upwards a few inches. He feels lighter, but heavier than ever before.

Ford lines a ring of salt towards the small point of the gap in the cliff,  big enough for a person to jump through. He connects the three crystals to the salt line, and then rings the whole thing in long cords of copper wire.

“Stan, you got a lighter?”

“Yeah,” he grunts, and digs it out of his coat, passing it off to the six-fingered hand of his brother. “Here.”

He always hoped that, when Stanford came back, they could… fix things. They had left on such a poor note, and it’s taking everything Stan has not to scream. There are more important things at stake right now than petty sibling arguments.

“Mr. Pines?”

Soos is standing next to him.

“You didn’t… you swear you didn’t know what would happen?”

Stan feels his throat close up, and he nods. “Soos, I. I don’t know what I gotta say, to make you believe me. I really thought… I never imagined…” he fights for the words, and manages to lower his voice enough so that he thinks Dipper and Stanley cannot hear him. “I just wanted to get my brother back.”

The man is hesitant, but puts a heavy hand on Stan’s shoulder. “You know I always got your back, Mr. Pines.”

He can’t express how grateful he is for that.

His brother is harder, and Stan tugs him away from the ring of salt, minutes from midnight.

“Listen- I know we got our issues. I know that… I know that I didn’t act like a brother should. But I spent thirty years regrettin’ every second of it, and you know I-”

“Stanley… When you come back, we’ll talk.”

“You don’t know if-”

“You’ll come back,” Stanford's voice is soft, almost childlike. “You always do.”

Stanford reaches out and shakes Stan’s hand, and he wants to die for the hundredth time that night.

"You only have until dawn, so set your watch. The portal will burn the crystals out and they won't be useable a second time. If something starts to come through that isn't you or the girl, I'm destroying the circle and shutting it down. We won't get a second chance at this.”

One way ticket.

“She might be at the house.” Stanford whispers to him.

"Why couldn't you come back on your own?" Dipper asks, and Stanford jumps, moving back to finish prepping the portal..

"It's complicated."

Dipper doesn't seem to like that answer. He looks at Stan for the first time since the basement. Stan catches his brother, out of the corner of his eye, slicing his thumb with a pocket knife. Watches red droplets hit the center of the salt circle while Dipper is distracted.

Complicated is right.

Stan imagines that if they wanted to make a fully functional, long-lasting, stable portal, it would require a whole lot of blood.

"If you don't bring her back," his nephew says, anger and hurt and blame sending daggers from his eyes right to Stan. "I will _never_ forgive you."

"Yeah. I won't forgive me, either."

He wants to hug Dipper, but he knows the boy won't let him. So he doesn't.

“You _have_ to bring her back.”

The look in Dipper’s eyes kills the old man, and he realizes that there is a small, infinitesimal piece of hope left in Dipper. If Stan pulls this off, they might have a chance to fix things. If Stan succeeds, there might just be an ending that doesn't destroy him.

Dipper isn't putting any trust in him, he’s demanding that Stan give him a reason to.

There’s a spark off to the side, and they both turn to see Ford standing up from the circle. He has set fire to the salt, and it burns bright, like a chemical fire, spreading across the ground and leaving a bizarre, gelatinous substance in it’s place. It’s smooth, shiny, like… pudding, or something. The crystals around it hum and pulse. Stan sees him clench his fist tight, a strip of cloth clenched in it.

A beep from his wrist tells him that yes, it’s midnight, right on the dot. He doesn't wait for a cue, and nobody says anything, Stan just staggers forward, stomach tight, and puts one foot over the circle. Someone behind him says something, but he doesn't catch it, because he’s already on borrowed time here.

He puts his foot down.

Years ago, he went and saw a movie about some teenager saving her little brother from David Bowie. He remembers being kind of amazed at the bit where Bowie steps off a ledge, and just swings to the other side of the ledge.

That’s exactly what Stan does now, feels his body thrust forward through the clammy coldness of the portal, and out into acrid, still air on the other side.

He smells fire. And dust. The coppery scent that could be metal but could also be blood. Stan lets himself get oriented, and takes in the surroundings he’s landed in.

He’s up high, on a hill overlooking a patch of decaying forest. The ground is blackened, hard packed and indistinguishable between rock or dirt. He can see mountains in the distance, and what might be trees all around him. They’re stripped of leaves and life, just old, dead wood, pale and grey and stark against a red rimmed sky. Towards the south- or maybe it’s north?- there are what looks like the ruins of a town, and towards the east…

Stan glances backwards, and the portal is still there, as goopy looking and unassuming as if a grown man had not at all just emerged from it. He breathes in once, swallows hard, and steels himself. If he really thinks hard about it, this place with it’s ruined earth and crumbling mountains looks an awfully lot like the town he has come to call home.

Ford said she might be at the shack.

Carefully, quickly, Stan starts booking it to the east, over pale stones that might not actually be stones, stumbling over rock and dirt and things that maybe were once human.

Is this where his brother has been for the past thirty years?

If his throat wasn’t tight before, it is now.

Mabel doesn’t belong here.

He hopes her trust in him is not misplaced.

But most of all he prays she’s still alive.

When he reaches the shack, winded and sweating, his watch beeps to let him know that an hour has passed. His time isn’t the best, and there is a lot of world to search if he intends to find his niece.

“Mabel!” he wheezes, approaching the crumbling building. It’s facade is rotting, and Stan does his damnedest to pretend that there aren’t old, decaying letters falling off of it’s smashed in roof.

He scouts around the shack first, and none of the doors are open, but all the windows are shattered. He can’t waste time being careful, he can’t waste time. His feet make the porch sag heavily, and he’s afraid they're going to sink right through the old wood. The door breaks off it’s hinges when he pushes on it, and Stan makes his way inside. It’s stripped bare in here, coated in dust and ash, impossible to tell if there was ever anything in here at all.

“MABEL!” he bellows, cupping his hands around his mouth, hearing his voice echo up into the attic. Waits for a second.

Nothing.

She has to be here. She HAS to be.

He goes through the living room, into what… what must have been the gift shop, once. Whatever this place is, parallel or future, it’s his- Ford's house, and he knows it like the back of his hand.

The vending machine isn't there, but the staircase into the basement is, and he hurries down the steps, praying, please, please, let it be there and let it work.

But it’s not. There is no elevator, just an empty space in the wall with a dangling length of cord hung over it. He swallows hard and moves to the ledge, looking down into the darkness.

He listens.

There’s something down there.

He takes a chance.

“Mabel?”

For a split instant, nothing, and then the sweetest sound in the universe echos up through the elevator shaft to hit his ears. Mabel Pines’ voice, panicked and relieved and thick with tears.

“ _Grunkle Stan_!”

Stanley Pines’ heart starts back up again.

He sags, shaking hands holding on tight to the ledge of the elevator, and he watches tears drip from his nose to fall into the darkness. He can’t really see her, but she’s down there. By whatever power that exists and wants them to make it, she’s down there.

“Mabel! Sweetie, I’m gonna get you outta there!”

There’s a hiccup of tears from down below. “But- how? The elevator’s broken- it’s down here.”

“W-where down there, kiddo?”

“I’m inside it! The top’s got a hatch, and- and it’s got no wire on it!”

“No wire?” he squints, but can’t see. Damn the cataracts, damn his poor vision, damn the dark. If there’s no wire down there, then- oh.

Above him, the pulley system for the elevator is mostly intact. The end of the cable is frayed and snapped, but it looks like the majority of it, if not almost all of it, is still coiled around the winch.

Stan’s mind works fast. His watch beeps. Two hours have gone by now. He has four to get back.

“Hang tight, Mabel! See if you can climb up to the roof of the elevator, alright? I’m coming down to get you!”

“But-”

“ _I’m coming to get you_!”

She has been trapped down there in the dark for hours. This isn't an argument, this isn't a debate. It's fact.

“Okay!”

He pulls off his jacket and ties it around his waist, braces himself on the doorway of the elevator to reach up and snag the wire, tugging it down to tie it around the coat that he’s settled around his hips. He tests it once or twice, but he doesn't have time to be safe, and he doesn't have time to be sure.

“I’m coming down, Mabel!”

“I- I got up to the roof of it!”

“Good girl! Stay back against the wall, alright?”

“Alright!”

Everything in his bones tells him this is a stupid idea.

Oh well.

Stan sits down on the ledge, maneuvers himself around, and starts to lower himself into the elevator shaft. Hanging on by his fingertips, he takes a few steadying breaths.

He hates heights. He really really hates heights. He’s not scared of them anymore, Mabel helped him with that, but this is dark and small and terrifying, and if he doesn’t do it, then they’re both dead.

“M-Mabel?”

“Grunkle Stan?” her voice sounds so small.

“What’d you say to me, back in the basement? When I asked you if you thought I was a bad guy?”

There a heavy silence.

“I said I trusted you!”

His throat feels so thick. “Do you still trust me?”

He can’t see her, but the moment of quiet that follows that question is most certainly weighted, confused, scared.

“Of course I do!” she calls up to him.

“Thank fuckin’ Christ one of us does, then.” he mutters, and lets go of the ledge.

Dark, cold air, rushing past him very fast, and he’s just quick enough to grab onto the slack he pulled as the wire above him unravels from the metal above. The free fall is slowed a bit by the fact that it has to unravel, but it still only takes about ten seconds to drop all the way down to the elevator at the bottom.

It feels like fifteen years, and finally there’s a powerful jerk upwards as the cable goes taught in his hands. He feels them burn across his palms, and he wishes he had the foresight to wrap something around his hands before he did this.

Not like Stanley Pines’ hindsight has ever been 20/20.

But he’s there, swaying over top of the elevator, and in the darkness he can see a small shadowy shape reaching for him. Stan throws out a hand, and small fingers latch on like ten little vices, scrabbling in the darkness to climb onto his chest and fling her arms around his neck.

“I gotcha- I gotcha- It’s okay, it’s gonna be okay!”

It feels like it will, finally. He doesn't feel like a liar.

She’s crying, and he wastes ten minutes shushing her, the cable creaking above them as they sway gently in the elevator shaft.

“Just ‘cause somethin’ went wrong,” she mumbles against his neck. “Doesn't mean I don’t trust you. Just ‘cause I don’t… I don’t know if you’re really my grunkle, doesn't mean you’re not my grunkle!”

Stan lets one hand loose from the cable and wraps it around her, burying his nose in his niece’s hair, trying not to fall apart when they’re suspended in midair like this.

“I _am_ your grunkle,” he says. “M’also a stupid old man.”

“You’re _my_ stupid old man.”

Watery laughter escapes his throat, and he squeezes her tightly in a hug.

“Okay- hang tight, okay? Gonna climb back up. S’gonna take a lot longer going up than it did coming down.”

“Mmkay.” she maneuvers around to piggy back on him, and Stan grabs hold of the cable again, taking a deep breath.

The journey up is aching, and his arms are burning by the time they reach the top. Mabel keeps giving him encouragement, squeezing his shoulders and telling him he’s the best grunkle ever. He doesn't think he deserves the praise, but somehow it eases the strain on his shuddering muscles. It takes a full hour, but they make it to the top and Mabel hops off his back onto the landing. He swings, lands on his feet, and immediately collapses onto the wood.

Mabel panics, rambling at him and asking if he’s okay and hugging him.

“M’fine- just-” he coughs. “Gimme a sec…”

They waste another ten minutes. But unless the portal has been closed prematurely, they should be alright.

Unless something stops them, they should be alright.

He doesn't feel at all ready to move, but enough time has passed, and Stan drags himself back up to his feet, undoing the cables before hoisting Mabel up onto his back. She presses her cheek against the side of his head as they leave the shack, and Stan does his best to shamble as quickly as possible back towards where he knows the portal is. The world around them is so silent, so dead. Somewhere, very very distantly, Stanley thinks he sees a massive golden angle tilt away from them. He ups his foot speed.

“Grunkle Stan?” she whispers.

“Yeah?”

“Thank you.”

“Ehe, don’t thank me yet, sweetie. Wait ‘til we’re outta dodge.”

She giggles. It makes the trip a lot less horrible.

The reach the portal with twenty minutes to spare, and he’s grateful. So grateful. He lets Mabel down off his back and nudges her towards the goop on the ground. It’s still there.

“You go first, just hop right into that puddle.”

“It’s safe?”

“Yeah. Feels weird, but it’s fine. Brought me here, so it should be good.”

She takes a deep breath, squeezes his hand, and hops through. Stan gets to watch the process this time, watches Mabel sink into the sludge until she’s completely gone. It seals back up as if nothing ever touched it.

Wild.

He breathes easier now. Takes a minute to look around the hilltop where portal resides. He doesn't know if this is the future, or something else. He knows he doesn't want this place to end up like this. Stan wonders if he should even bother going through the portal. He’s dead tired, and he knows that things will only be so much harder on the other side. Over here, it’s easy, he could disappear, fade away, no mess, no fuss. It could be simple.

He wastes probably too much time being a dreary bastard, because he sees a small, sweatered sleeve appear in the muck of the portal, waving around, reaching.

Stan smiles, reaches out, and takes the hand. Lets himself fall into the pool and swing around to land on a heap in the crack of the cliff. It’s so bright here, the suns rays are reaching up into the sky, flooding the night with pale blue, purple, and gold. That cool, dewy early summer's morning he's grown to love the silence of. He can hear birds singing, and there are voices overhead, talking quickly. Hands on his forehead and shoulders.

“Give him a second- give him a second, geez! He had to climb up an elevator, and he’s old!”

He wheezes, and then grunts as Mabel lands on his stomach, skinny arms crushing his rib cage.

“Weren't you the one advocatin’ for giving me a second?” he gasps, dropping a hand on top of her head, which is beaming at him from somewhere around his chest.

“Psssh, yeah, but you said I had to wait ‘til we were both over here before I could thank you, a-duh!” she squeezes a little harder, and Stan can’t stop the smirk that spreads across his jaw.

He sees Ford kicking the blackened, cracked crystals away from the portal, and there’s a fizzling sound as the muck melts into charred hunks of salt and twisted copper. Soos drops down next to his head, blubbering almost comically.

“Mr. Pines! I’m sorry I tackled you- and yelled at you! And did a bunch of other stuff yesterday that would probably get me fired on any other day- oh geez, I’m not fired am I? I don’t wanna be fired!”

“You’re not fired, Soos, shut up,” he slaps a hand against Soos’ knee, groaning quietly as he tries to sit up. “Ya did good, pal.”

Stan gives Soos about ten seconds of emotional hugging before he shoves the young man off of his shoulder, shaking his head and having a hard time ignoring the affection in his gut. He catches Stanford's eye, and his twin is smiling, eyes glazed over with what might be unshed tears. There are going to be a lot of hard conversations coming his way, he knows that. There’s trouble brewing on the horizon, and shit is going to hit the fan sooner rather than later.

But there’s forgiveness in his brother’s face. Six hours ago, every single person he gave a damn about was against him, and now there’s a chance to make things better with almost all of them.

Except one.

Dipper is standing off to the side, and Stan does not blame him. He very nearly lost his sister, and yeah, Stan lied. A lot. He nudges Mabel up and off of him.

“Alright alright, show’s over. The old man is alive, in pain, but alive-” something collides against him, and he very nearly topples back over.

Dipper is clinging to his neck like Mabel did not too long ago.

Nobody says anything, and for a minute, Stan doesn't know what to do.

He does not deserve this.

“What is this, a hug?” he croaks, quiet as he can into Dipper’s ear.

“No,” comes the watery, shaking voice of his nephew. “It’s a choke hold.”

Stan lifts his arm, tired and bone-weary, up to wrap around Dipper, and he pulls the boy against his chest in the first real hug he thinks he’s ever given the kid.

There is a lot more about to come at them, he knows that. He’s made too many mistakes, too many times for there not to be. This doesn't mean Dipper trusts him, this doesn't mean anyone- except Mabel- trusts him.

But it does mean there’s a chance.

And a chance is all Stanley Pines has ever needed.

 


End file.
